ELEMENTS OF BARTRAM'S LANDSCAPE 85 



forests are not without subjective coloring. At one time he is 

 grateful for the shade afforded him by " incomparable forests " 

 (p. 336) ; at another time he hears the " awful reverential har- 

 mony " of " the high lonesome forests," a harmony " inexpressi- 

 bly sublime, and not to be enjoyed any where, but in these 

 native wild Indian regions " (p. 180) . The magnificence of 

 " stately " pines pleases him all the more because he has just 

 traversed " expansive wild plains " (p. 173). 



The '" plains " of Bartram are not, however, as barren as the 

 last quotation might suggest. Even his " endless wastes " pro- 

 duce " a few shrubby, crooked Pine trees " and " clumps of 

 mean shrubs " (p. 242) , and even in the " most dreary, solitary 

 desart waste " he had ever beheld, there is a thin scattering of 

 grass and a few " Pines, Oaks, Olives and Sideroxilons " — 

 though "poor, misshapen and tattered" (p. 218). Yet he is 

 naturally more voluble when crossing fields, meadows, lawns, 

 green savannas, even marshes and swamps. He notes shrubs, 

 flowers, " herbage," vines, " plants," grasses; in one plain, " a 

 vast profusion of herbage " (p. 180) ; in another, " the most 

 extensive Cane-break (or Cane meadows) that is to be seen on 

 the face of the whole world " (p. 233). He observes that " a 

 new and beautiful species of Verbena . . . grows in old fields 

 where there is a good soil " (p. 436) . He asks, rhetorically, the 

 reader to observe "" these green meadows " which " seem enam- 

 elled with the beds of flowers," which he then proceeds to 

 enumerate (p. xviii) . He calls attention to " a very great 

 curiosity," a new " and very elegant " species of Sarcinia grow- 

 ing plentifully in the level, wet savannas near Pensacola (p. 

 417). In a planter's "spacious" garden, in Louisiana, he 

 observes " many useful as well as curious exoticks, particularly 

 the delicate Tube-rose. ... In one corner of the garden was a 

 pond or marsh, round about which grew luxuriantly the Scotch 

 grass . . ." (pp. 429-430). 



It is true, nevertheless, that mountains and promontories stir 

 Bartram more profoundly than the most luxuriant fields. They 

 afl^ord him a panoramic view of the countryside, widen his hori- 

 zon, and appeal to his sense of the majestic. Standing upon an 

 elevated peak in the Jore mountains, he beholds " with rapture 



